(Newser)
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Having failed to convince Americans of an imminent nuclear threat from Iran, the White House “has reconceived” its campaign, writes the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh, targeting Tehran instead as an exporter of terrorism, especially of weapons and insurgents to Iraq. By recasting Iran as an aggressor in Iraq, he writes, the administration is able to cast its obsession with Iran as an effort to save US lives.

And it's the vice president's obsession, Hersh claims, that's behind the redrawing of battle plans that previously called for broad bombing of suspected nuclear facilities, and now call for surgical strikes on Revolutionary Guard properties. Hersh presents evidence that Iran’s role in Iraq has been overstated by the White House, as part of a stepped-up effort to make a military attack on Iran palatable to Americans.